


Live Without A Lifeline

by Neffectual



Series: My American Boys [3]
Category: American Professional Wrestling, Professional Wrestling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Casual Sex, Closeted Character, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Pansexual Character, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sharing, everyone's a bit damaged
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 12:29:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: MV uses the love of others to fill him up, to make up for how he cannot love himself.RJ uses the way others praise his attractiveness to give himself self-worth.Effy makes everything into sex to avoid having to talk about anything more serious.Allie's just glad she got out before everything became so tangled.Or: the poly cult college AU no one asked for
Relationships: MV Young/Allie Kat, MV Young/Effy, MV Young/RJ City
Series: My American Boys [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647922
Kudos: 5





	1. I don't know how

**Author's Note:**

> I’m drawing a lot off real experience, though mine was from 16 to 18. I’ve aged it up here, partially just to keep it further away from the truth. It’s about using polygamy as a way to deal with depression and the emptiness - I’m not stating that all poly relationships are because of this, just that mine, at that point of my life, absolutely were. It’s also about how you can’t just pretend your feelings aren’t happening by smothering them with the feelings of another. Contains relationships in various combinations of genders. 
> 
> Written to a great deal of Sleeping At Last.

There’s something wrong with him, MV thinks, because he’s just never happy, no matter what he’s got. He wasn’t happy with family, ended things with the perfect girlfriend, fucked around so much that his college work suffered for it. He ruins everything he touches.

But then there's reaching for RJ's hand and having him snatch it away like MV's not good enough, like he's ashamed, and MV gets it, he does, because why wouldn't RJ be ashamed of him? He's like a beacon on a dark night, and MV aches to see him shine

And then there's the heartstopping ache of Effy taking his hand, kissing him in front of others, that he can't seem to stop telling everyone he knows about how he's had sex with MV - or had sex. MV seems like the least important part of that sentence.

He's greedy, he's always been greedy, hates that he's so fucking empty inside that he needs two lovers to fill him up and that even then, he still begs and pines for attention. He doesn't spend a single night alone, and yet lies awake, listening to one of his boys breathing.

If being alone is terrible, then sitting up awake while one lover sleeps in your bed and the other's out at someone else's party, doing shots off someone else's chest... it feels like the end of the world. MV knows he can't keep doing this. But he doesn't know how to stop.

  
  
MV doesn’t really know how it happened. He wasn’t looking for more than one boyfriend at a time, but then, he wasn’t exactly looking for anything, other than someone to stop the howling ache of loneliness, in his body if not his mind.

He was seeing Allie, at the time, and the two of them were slowly fracturing each other’s souls, piece by piece, by being too much and not enough all at once. He might never forgive her for giving him a taste for only dating people who are more gorgeous than he is, because at least if he knew he was the prettiest in the relationship, he’d feel secure. At least, he hopes he’d feel secure. Maybe he’s so much of a mess that even lowering his standards wouldn’t be enough.

He knew things with Allie were ending, as much as both of them were digging their claws in and trying to refuse to see it, and so, one night, he rolled over, and just asked.

“What’d you think about being poly?” MV said, only the faintest hint of exertion in his tone. His chest was still flushed and hot with sweat, and he could taste her on his lips as he licked them, nervously. She’d come three times to his one, because she’d taught him that she never settled for anything less than what she wanted, and yet he was the one who felt wrung out.

“Seen someone you’d like to share with me?” she asked, because she was nothing if not direct, even when shoving sweat-damp strands of soft pink hair out of her eyes and eyeing the mouth-shaped bruise he’d left on one soft breast.

“No, I just – “ he stumbled over his words, felt the blush rise in his cheeks the way it had the first time she’d slid her eyes over his body and asked how well he ate ass. He hated that blush, hated the way it marked out a weakness in him for others to exploit. “I was thinking about it, is all.”

Allie shrugged one shoulder lazily, already starting to leave the bed, heading for the bathroom. She’d got what she wanted, and she’d never seen the point in hanging around where she wasn’t welcome.

“I don’t want a threesome,” she said, off-hand, like she was talking to an acquaintance, and not someone who’d just fucked his come into her and then eaten her out clean. “But if you want to date other people, I don’t mind. I might even like hearing about it, so long as I don’t have to watch. Unless you find some pretty girl who’s up for it.”

“You’d want to watch me… with another girl?” MV asks, almost too floored at the mental picture to realise she’s approved him seeing other people.

“Stop objectifying me, thank you,” she said, with an eyeroll, “unless you’re gonna be up for another round in the shower.” And then she was out of his sight, and he’d walked to the bathroom like a man possessed, and hadn’t thought about anyone else for the rest of the night.

  
  
The first time he saw RJ, he was meant to be heading to class, meant to be looking at some shitty poem about the curl of a virgin’s hair, when he’d heard a joyful laugh, and turned towards it like a flower turning towards the sun. And there was RJ, head thrown back as he chuckled, before his mouth was all soft smirk again, eyes glittering darkly with promise. He was beautiful, and MV nearly tripped off the sidewalk – thank fuck for low-traffic campus roads – as he tried to walk and watch at the same time.

He made an executive decision, and turned, heading back towards the captivating man and the way his hair shone in the sunlight, how it was long and looked soft, and MV just wanted to be allowed to brush that hair until it moved like liquid silk. His body looked to be incredible, but it was the smile that really sent MV’s head spinning, made him walk over there, and follow the gorgeous man into a lecture for a course he absolutely was not studying.

Film theory of the 1920s turned out to be pretty interesting, as it happened, but MV, sat behind this incredible, vivacious boy, didn’t take any of it in. He just watched the boy in front of him, the way his hair fell in soft waves that he tucked back behind his ear when he leaned forwards to take notes, the way his lips quirked in a smile sometimes when the professor said something, as if responding to a private joke. His low, quiet voice as he made a comment to a friend, which caused a quiet ripple of laughter. MV was fascinated, feeling like he was watching some sort of courting display, like the tails of a peacock, because he couldn’t look away.

After the class was over, MV waited at the end of the row, and ran his hand self-consciously through his curls, before smiling at the boy heading towards him.

“Hi,” he said, stupidly, breath catching when those eyes met his, and he struggled to breathe through that dazzling beauty and how it felt to have it all pointed at him. “I go by MV. Wanna come get a coffee?”

He must have sounded like a complete idiot, and introducing himself nickname first, like a tool… he could feel his hands start to clench into fists, before he caught the interested smile on the other boy’s face.

“Coffee, hm?” he asked, and his voice was like the drink itself; strong and hot and rich. “My one weakness.”

There was a pause, before the other boy started walking off, and MV’s shoulders sank, as he bit his lip. Of course he didn’t want to get coffee, of course he didn’t –

“I’m RJ, by the way,” the other boy said, from where he’d stopped, looking back over his shoulder with a laconic smile. “So, are you coming for that coffee, or are you just going to stand there all day?”

MV shook himself out of his daze, and half-jogged to catch up, ears burning. He wasn’t sure he knew how to do this, not dating, not with boys. You fucked boys, and you dated girls, and that was how it had worked up until now. And yet… did it have to be that way?

“Have somewhere in mind?” he asked, trying to act like he wasn’t having an internal breakdown about his bisexuality. “Starbucks?”

“Ugh,” RJ said, with a mock-shudder. “No, I was thinking we’d go somewhere with better coffee than that.”

“Okay, sure,” MV said, nodding and agreeing, like he and Allie hadn’t just had a fight about whether what they served at Starbucks could legally be called coffee, like he had any idea and didn’t only drink coffee when he’d been up until 4am and had an 8am class. “Where?”

RJ smiled, showing all his teeth, and carefully tucked an errant strand of hair behind his ear.

“My place,” he said, with a smirk, and carried on walking, leaving MV gaping for a second before his brain started working again and his knees stopped being weak, and he ran to catch up. “Problem?”

“No,” MV said, quietly, daring to meet RJ’s broad smile with a tentative one of his own, trying to put his coat of confidence back on. “No problem.”


	2. if brokenness is a work of art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RJ copes with trying to date, anxiety, and what it feels like to hate yourself so much that you sabotage your own possibilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for an intense description of what it feels like to have a panic attack, and internalised homophobia.

When RJ thinks about MV, there’s an ugly twist to his mouth that he can see when he passes any reflective surface. There are those who believe his vanity is what causes him to check his appearance, to constantly boost his ego by watching his own reflection go past. In truth, every glimpse is filled with a maddening search to be certain his flaws aren’t showing, that the chaotic mess of emotion he feels under the surface has not broken free. He no longer bothers to catalogue his issues with the man who looks back at him in public; there’s too many, and they only serve to hurt him – no, he saves the self-flagellation for when he’s back in his dorm room, with that full-length mirror that would cut less cruelly were he to break it into shards.

At first, when MV had approached him, he’d thought the other boy was kidding, asking him out just like that, without even letting them have a meet-cute first. RJ has so many ideas about how romance is supposed to go, learnt it all from watching black and white films where a man would bow before asking a lady to dance. He’s no lady, but he’s always wanted to feel that spark, that moment where someone would look at him and see him, really see him, and understand that despite how he seems, he isn’t shallow all the way to the bottom. So while he’d taken the invitation to coffee for what it was, and assumed this would be yet another one-off with someone who didn’t want to stick around once they realised what a mess he was on the inside, he’d hoped. He’s always hoped.

The confidence he’d worn, to take MV back to his place, didn’t drop away as easily as he’d thought it might once they got in; he didn’t even bother heading for the shared kitchen, his French press could wait. Instead, he kept his smirk in place, and took MV’s hand, leading him to the bedroom, and starting to take his shirt off before the door was fully closed. The way MV’s hands reached for him was gratifying, the greediness in his eyes, the bulge in his jeans; everything combining to remind RJ that people wanted him, people always wanted him. Until they got to know him, anyway.  
  
“I’ve got a girlfriend,” MV said, suddenly, like he’d just remembered this was the case, and RJ wondered why the other boy thought he’d care. It wasn’t like they’d see each other again, after this. No one ever stuck around the beautiful mess he became once he let himself relax, stop holding in all his feelings so tightly. “I mean – she’s cool with it, we’re doing this poly thing, but I figured you should know.”

That, on the other hand… that was sweet, RJ thought, even as his clever fingers unbuttoned MV’s jeans and he slid his hand inside.

“That’s fine,” RJ said, keeping his words perfunctory. The less he talked, the less likely he was to spill all his insecurities all over this, and ruin it somehow. “She hot?”

“Oh yeah,” MV said, with a grin that had little to do with his hands on RJ’s ass. “Only wants to watch me play with girls though.”

“Pity,” RJ said, rather than the truth, which was that he couldn’t bear the idea of someone watching him have sex. A partner, sure, because they were in the same cocoon of arousal and need, but not someone sat on the sidelines, watching, able to catch the moment that his mask of careful attractiveness slipped, and he became something no one could ever want. For someone who seemed to love all eyes on him, he had a hatred of being observed.

The sex had been good, but what had kept RJ from kicking MV out afterwards with a blithe smile was how the other boy finger-combed his hair, gentle, undoing all the tangles from the sweat at the back of his neck from their activities. He was careful, and stayed pressed up close, warm and soothing, for longer than politeness would have deemed necessary.

But eventually, his arms unwound, and he kissed the back of RJ’s neck in a way that almost hurt with how soft it was, and started to dress.

“I can give you my number,” MV had said, the start of a blush pinkening at his cheekbones in a way that shouldn’t have been so devastatingly attractive. “You know, if you want to… do this again.”

“This girlfriend of yours,” RJ had said, and he didn’t know what had possessed him to open himself up like that, “she only okay with you fucking people, or is dating on the table too?” The second he’d said it, he cursed himself and how he was always so graspingly needy. No wonder no one ever stuck around.

But MV didn’t look angry, or upset. Instead, he looked… intrigued, like he hadn’t thought of that as an option, but was now seriously starting to consider it.

“I think dating’s cool,” he said, slowly, sounding unsure. “If you give me your number, I can check? Let you know?”

RJ smiled, artfully letting the covers fall as he sat up, exposing just enough of himself to remind MV of their previous actions, to reach for his phone. He felt that hungry gaze glide along his skin, and let the smile grow. Maybe there was something in this that he could enjoy.

Before their first real date, RJ stands in front of the mirror in his room, towel around his waist, gooseflesh prickling at his arms, and feels the way his chest trembles with the outbreath, knees feeling too weak to hold him up. He lets the towel drop in favour of clutching the desk beside him, knuckles whitening with the force of his grip, and yet does not take his eyes off himself.

He keeps himself in peak physical condition because what else does he have to offer but a body everyone wants to touch, what else is he but a frame perfectly honed to be an object of desire? He wants, so badly, to cancel this date, to instead coax MV back to his room, back to where whatever is said and done is kept behind closed doors. He has never had to contend with this before, never had to deal with the idea of being seen, out there, with another boy. With people looking and deciding what they are to each other, how they touch each other, why they’re wrong.

The breath catches in his throat, chest feeling like there’s twenty pounds of pressure on it, threatening to squash his lungs flat. His hands begin to claw as he stumbles away from the desk and onto the bed, falling before he can sit. It feels like hands around his throat, like swallowing something sharp and brittle and cutting, like he’s going to pass out because there’s not enough oxygen in his lungs. This is his first attack in weeks, and he’d naïvely thought he was past this, that he’d finally stop caring what other people think if he could just find someone to love him.

Instead, he lets his nails dig into his own thighs as he stares up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused, trying to count in his head to slow his breathing, but he can’t hear the numbers over the screams, over the sound of a hundred lessons in why liking boys was wrong, in why he couldn’t have what he wanted, in why he was sick, and wrong, and evil. He didn’t think he believed it, thought he’d left that behind, but just thinking about being seen in public with MV on what is clearly a date feels like an icy hand around his heart.

He scrabbles for his phone, hands shaking so hard he almost hits himself in the face with it, feels himself clammy with sweat, and taps out a quick message, sending it before he loses his nerve, cancelling on MV, claiming he’s sick. Well, isn’t that what he’s always been told?

With the looming pressure of the date fading, he can focus on the numbers in his head, just slowly counting to ten over and over, regulating his breathing. He’s still shaking, his face feeling almost numb with the strain of trying to calm down. His phone buzzes, but he knocks it off the bed with a hand, too terrified that his breathing will descend back into that fractured wheezing that threatens to tear him apart. He hits the mattress, furious with himself for being so fucking broken that he can’t go after the things he wants.

Later, when MV knocks at his door, and his phone lights up, over and over, with missed call after missed call, RJ puts his head under the pillow, and pretends the ache in his chest is only a leftover from the panic attack. He’s become so good at lying that he almost believes himself.


End file.
